Eagle Jazz among 263 trying to qualify for All American Futurity

The competition for the 10 spots in the starting gate for the $3 million All American Futurity for Quarter Horses will be intense on Friday and Saturday, when Ruidoso Downs in New Mexico puts on 28 trial races for the classic. There are 263 individual 2-year-olds entered, and the horses with the five fastest times from each 14-race card will advance to the finale Sept. 3.

First post for each program is 11:30 a.m. Mountain.

Ruidoso will keep with the trial theme on Sunday, when it puts on 13 of them for the $1.3 million All American Derby for Quarter Horses. The finale is Sept. 2. Notable names among the 116 entered in the trials include Imperial Eagle, the winner of last year’s All American Futurity, who starts in the first race, and Hold Air Hostage and High Plains Perry, the one-two finishers in last month’s Rainbow Derby, who meet in race 11.

The group of 2-year-olds running Friday is led by Uptown Dynasty, who starts in the third race. He dead-heated for the win in the Ruidoso Futurity in June and ran second in the Rainbow Futurity in July. Fire and Sass, the winner of the Kindergarten Futurity in May at Los Alamitos, goes in race 9.

The focus Saturday will be on Eagle Jazz, the nation’s top-ranked 2-year-old, who starts in race 13. He shared the Ruidoso win with Uptown Dynasty, then came back and took the Rainbow. Eagle Jazz is the lone horse eligible for a $4 million bonus from Ruidoso that rewards the 2-year-old who can sweep its most prestigious futurities: the Ruidoso, Rainbow, and All American.